Sweet hydro ride

If I had kids, they would so be getting this sweet Hydro-powered toy car for xmas!

It apparently runs on clean energy hydro technology, using "a next-generation reversible Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cell". I want to own that sentence, let alone a person-sized version of this sweet machine.

Do we really need to eat all this meat?

Sir Paul McCartney has recently highlighted a pretty big issue: that the livestock sector is worse for the environment than the transport sector. A recent united nations report found the sector generates a full 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Here are the scary bits:

» 70% of the Amazon forest has been turned to grazing for beef

» Livestock use 30% of the planet's surface

» Livestock emit 65% of our nitrous oxide output 

(nitrous oxide is 296 times worse than CO2 for global warming)

Even just going one day a week without meat would help. Not to mention the benefits to health and to the incredible cruelty of the meat industry. I still eat a little bit of meat, but I feel a bit guilty every time I do. I have pledged with a friend to go back to full vegetarianism on January 1, but I might secretly start now.

Equation for action on climate change

He waffles a bit, but makes a good argument

MTV wants a smack

MTV rejects Buy Nothing Day TV Spot

The station that markets itself as the voice of hip youth has censored the burping pig. Their advertising standards representative, Elisa Billis, said that "the spot goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels". Too radical for MTV?

You can let the executives at MTV know how you feel about this kind of censorship by sending them an email from the Adbuster's website. To view the spot go to Adbusters Buy Nothing Day page.

Buy Nothing Day

Apparently, 70% of my carbon footprint comes from the things I buy. Lately I have been lucky enough to have discovered excellent local farmers' markets, and my parents bring back masses of delicious vegies when they visit their house on Lake Cootharaba, but I am still contributing to the single worst environmental & social habit in society: shopping.

Studies have shown that the average parent spends seven hours a week shopping, but only one hour with their kids. While I am not sure about organised religion, it still holds better morals than the new cultural base of materialism. Just take a look at all the massive shopping temples being constructed in our suburbs. Look at how much bottled water costs when you can just get it out of the tap!

To this end, I am so not buying anything on "No shopping day". And I am trying hard to cut down on my participation in this whole consumerist thing. The hardest to break will be my adidas sneaker addiction, but I must at least try. I did not buy any yesterday, and I reckon I can get through tomorrow...

Also, I love these guys almost as much as I love their soundtrack:

Rick Poynor says it best

Great quote from a text I just finished:
"The consumerist status quo pumps out a vast, overwhelming, massively-resourced slurry of consciousness-shaping propaganda.
What on earth is wrong with producing and taking support from some alternative points of view?" (Poynor, 2006 p.60—61)

Poynor, R 2006: Designing Pornotopia: travels in visual culture
Princeton Architectural Press, NY

Website for other good humans

Good old Cate Blanchett let me be a good human today!

Speaking out with street posters

It makes me so mad when I walk into a newsagent and see all those magazines, all those dead trees, knowing they will all be thrown away or "recycled" and replaced in one month's time.
I decided to research it a bit, and the figures are shocking: over 18 million per month in Australia alone are sold, so that is not even counting the ones that are sent back and pulped.
We NEED those trees to make oxygen! Jeez.
I spent $1000 on the print run and distribution for this A2 poster. I feel like a better human already.

In response to Megan's comments, some more info on the poster:
1. No graphic design output is good for the environment

2. Sustainable graphic design is about ensuring obviously destructive techniques are applied wisely, conservatively and for an ethical purpose

The poster used techniques like:
» no bleed to edge to ensure ease of de-inking for offcuts
» 2 colours only, and avoiding dark blue/purple/red family of inks that are much harder to de-ink at recycling stage
» The green colour is an 80% screen, not solid colour to aid de-inking
» Printing only as many as needed
» Paper and ink could have been at a higher environmental level, but as a student I considered the message was more important than not being able to afford it at all. I selected an uncoated with a percentage of recycled post consumer waste.